A lush tangle of small-town life branches out in this engrossing collection of short stories. –Kirkus Discoveries

The ability to depict such a wide cross section of humanity, including details of each character’s breadth of knowledge and experience, takes a talented, insightful author, and Duane Simolke is such a writer. –E. Conley, Betty’s Books

If you liked WINESBURG, OHIO…rejoice. –Watchword

By the time you have finished reading these tales of the people who inhabit the fictitious town of Acorn, Texas, population 21,001, you will have met some endearing as well as irritating characters, from the Mayor to the local would-be gigolo; from the busy-bodies to the business owners; from those who grew up in Acorn and have tried to escape the small town to those who have moved to Acorn to escape from the real world. –Ronald L. Donaghe, author of Uncle Sean

A well-crafted collection of short stories. –L. L. Lee, author of Taxing Tallula

When you finish, when you put the book aside, Acorn will still be with you.” –E. Carter Jones, author of Absence of Faith

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Visit the West Texas town of Acorn! Enjoy the German festival, a high school football game, homemade apple pie from the Turner Street Café, and the cool shade of a hundred-year-old oak tree. Meet dedicated teachers, unusual artists, shrewd business owners, closeted gays, and concerned neighbors. See how lives become intertwined in moments of humor or tragedy. Just be careful, because in Acorn, the sky is always falling!

“By killing yourself, intentionally or through unsafe sex, you call yourself worthless and expendable. How can you think of a human being that way? Quit punishing yourself for the bigotry in society. Refuse to help the cause of homophobia. Take care of yourself. Learn to love yourself and protect yourself. See yourself and your partner as worth protecting. Treat safer sex as an act of defiance and gay pride, a statement about your love for yourself, a statement about the value of your life. Treat living each day as a tear in the fabric of bigotry.”

Mountman, a reviewer for StoneWall Society, has created animated versions of two poems from Holding. Visit MS Agent Pages for the software and links. (Note: the poems are earlier versions, and slightly different from how they appear in Holding’s 2nd Edition.)

Monday, June 18, 2007

Summer reading.

This is the 300th blog entry at Acorn Universes! Thanks for reading!

Critic and gay activist Amos Lassen has just reviewed The Acorn Stories for Amazon.Com and the gay Web site Eureka Pride. Lassen wrote that “Each of Simolke’s stories lets us look into the lives of some of the most interesting characters I have ever read about.”

8:00- “Bob and Jack’s 52-year Adventure” – Directed by Special Guest Stu Maddux – story of two men who survived all odds and are still together 53 years later (41 minutes)(Followed by discussion with director)

9:15- Women Short Films (30 minutes)

9:45- “Tan Lines” – Coming of age story of young surfer(97 minutes)**

11:00- Special Bonus-- film from 2007 Diversity Pride in Eureka Springs (60 minutes)

9:00- “Back Soon” – Bittersweet love story between two men, one of whom is straight (83 minutes)**

10:30- Bonus Gay Short Films****Films may not be suitable for all ages

There will be additional showings as well after the official schedule (as bonus films) including the world premiere of "We're All Angels."

***Bob and Jack's 52-year Adventure

(Little Rock, AR) In 1952 an Army sergeant was cornered and courted by his commanding officer. Their romance grew so obvious that rumors became anonymous tips to headquarters. They avoided court-martial by confronting their entire unit. That pivotal moment cemented Bob and Jack together for the rest of their lives. 52-years later they share how they remained a couple: how one man left his wife and children, how together they moved to a small town and became a fixture in the community, and today how they survive in their eighties without the benefits of marriage.

Now, Bob and Jack’s 52-Year Adventure, an award winning documentary about their relationship will have its Arkansas premiere Saturday June 23rd, 8 PM at Easy Street Piano Bar as the opening night film of Reel Attractions, The Arkansas GLBTQ Film Festival. A discussion with director Stu Maddux will follow.

“We feel extremely honored to premiere at this festival,” says Bob Claunch, now 81, from their home in Los Angeles, CA. “With everything going across the country with "don't ask don't tell" and with gay marriage, we hope people are encouraged by our story. We didn’t have it easy but we didn’t give up.”

“That’s one of the reasons we think that the film is a good message for young people too”, says partner Jack Reavley, 83. “They need to know that they can have successful relationships. The skeptics are just waiting for us to fail when we try to have lifelong love. Well, we didn't. And we're here to tell you that you won't either'."

The weekend-long festival will exhibit more than a dozen films including some of the best releases this year in the genre of gay cinema. For more information about the event contact Amos Lassen: 870-550-6298.

Del Shores, creator of the cult classic Sordid Lives, is currently directing a film version of his play Southern Baptist Sissies. I saw a production of Sissies in Dallas; it’s as funny as Sordid Lives at times, but really sad at others. It’s great all the way through, though, and I had kept hoping Shores would turn it into a movie.

Monday, June 04, 2007

I’ve always appreciated Len Rogers of StoneWall Society for Pride in the Arts, Rainbow World Radio, and all the other great work he does to promote LGBT music, books, film, art, and spoken word. However, I never knew about how SWS came to be, until I read Jed Ryan’s interview with Len.

It’s a long interview, but inspiring, and a great example of how much difference one person can make. Len not only gives of his own time and creativity but also provides a platform for reviewers like Mountman (his best friend) to help promote gay artists.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Eureka: Season One, the first DVD of the goofy and lovable SciFi Channel series, is also available for pre-order. As I mentioned here recently, the new season starts in July, along with the first American broadcast of Doctor Who Series Three.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Scifi/fantasy news.

Watch for the DVD of Babylon 5: The Lost Tales, Volume One in July, as the beginning of a direct-to-video series. StarGate SG1 will continue this fall, with two direct-to-video movies. Meanwhile, the final 10 episodes of the series will start Friday the 13th on the SciFi Channel, followed by StarGate Atlantis and the new series Painkiller Jane.

This summer, SciFi will offer a new season of Eureka, along with a new Flash Gordon series. Their sister network, USA, will have new seasons of The Dead Zone and the 4400—both airing during the summer. Battlestar Galactica will return to SciFi in 2008, possibly January.

Watch for Torchwood on BBC America, as part of a “Supernatural Saturday” programming block. I haven’t seen the premiere date yet.

Spring and summer sf/f movies include Next, as well as the latest installments of Spider-Man, Harry Potter, Fantastic Four, and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Director David DeCoteau offers horror B-movies with extremely homoerotic undertones, mostly by putting a lot of cute guys in situations together that involve wrestling, underwear, or bondage. Some of those movies are fun as guilty pleasures, but the ones I’ve seen never quite make the leap from gay overtones to gay.

Enter writer/director/producer Jeff London. London usually makes quiet dramas about gay characters who are struggling to deal with coming out or other issues. I’ve kept up with his work since And Then Came Summer. I especially love his movie Regarding Billy and never would have expected him to jump from that tender love story to a zombie flick. But here it is.

When Darkness Falls is classic, 1950s-style horror, relying on shadows and scares, while avoiding gore. However, unlike any movies from the 1950s, all the characters are gay. Despite the success of the gay slasher movie Hellbent and Here TV’s supernatural series Dante's Cove, gay horror movies are still rare. This one is an entertaining entry into a new genre.

Mike Dolan and Matt Austin play two young men who are just starting a relationship. Kevin (Dolan) invites his new boyfriend, Danny (Austin), to spend the weekend with him in the mountains. Kevin’s home there is not only secluded in the woods but also adjacent to a cemetery.

Kevin enjoys scaring Danny as often as possible. Unfortunately, Kevin’s romantic advances get stalled by the arrival of his friends, who also enjoy scary pranks. As the night progresses, the scares go from joking around to something more sinister.

London keeps the tone light and playful. The actors all bring charm and good looks to that fun atmosphere. Some of the acting needed more work—another parallel to David DeCoteau—but that’s normal with low-budget horror movies.

The DVD of When Darkness Falls also includes a second, shorter film, The Best of Care. This one involves two of the actors from the first film, Mike Dolan and Ron Petronicolos. Both actors also appeared in London’s movie The Last Year.

The Best of Care uses a much darker tone than When Darkness Falls. Bill lives with his sick boyfriend, caring for him around the clock. The tension finally overtakes him, leading to some disturbing plot twists.

Mark Krench scored both of this DVD’s films with appropriately creepy music. Scary movies rely heavily on the right music to lead up to the bumps in the night; Krench delivers, adding to the fun of this Saturday matinee double feature.

Filmmaker Jeff London grew up in California but recently relocated to West Texas and plans to later relocate to Hawaii. His first film, The Judgement Road, received a Best Drama Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in Hollywood.

Since London is a big science fiction fan, I hope he eventually procures the budget for a gay science fiction movie. We can find many gay science fiction books, and British television made a hit of the queer-themed scifi series Torchwood. The audience is apparently there, waiting.

Read more about When Darkness Falls and other Jeff London films at Guardian Pictures.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Visit Blackfeet Indian History to learn about Blackfeet Indians and other Native Americans. Bill Wetzel, one of the authors of The Acorn Gathering, is a Blackfeet Indian and wrote about reservation life in one of the stories he contributed to that collection.

Friday, March 16, 2007

All Captain Galrang Elbercroft wanted was to make a decent profit. Somehow, he managed to get tangled up in a web of deceit and violence while on a routine trading mission to an asteroid mining colony. Now he and his crew, along with the colony’s citizens, must battle a mercenary horde. They will have to use everything they have, their courage, their wits, and the capabilities of their sentient cargo vessel to survive against the merciless forces of a rapacious interstellar megacorporation.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Torchwood, the spin-off from Doctor Who, is now available on DVD in the UK. Watch here for details about the American release; we already have the Torchwood books. Doctor Who airs in America on the SciFi Channel and BBC America, but I haven’t seen anything about either station airing its spinoff. Captain Jack, the main character on Torchwood, appears in numerous past and upcoming episodes of Who. Jack is a bisexual character, played by the handsome and openly gay actor/singer John Barrowman.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Thom Fitzgerald presents a globe-scanning epic about humanity’s response to the AIDS pandemic.

Countless movies already deal with AIDS, but writer/director Thom Fitzgerald uses his film 3 Needles to examine the epidemic on simultaneously global, personal, and spiritual levels. Amid beautiful scenery and equally beautiful people, the HIV virus takes its toll. The onslaught of a common enemy makes Fitzgerald, his narrator, and (hopefully) the audience wonder why we can’t all unite against that enemy.

The film’s narrator, and one of its stars, is Olympia Dukakis. Loved for her roles in hit films such as Steel Magnolias and Moonstruck, Dukakis has also appeared in many gay-themed features, such as Jeffrey, Tales of the City, and one of Fitzgerald’s previous films, The Event. She always charms viewers with natural, seemingly effortless performances, but here she plays one of her more dramatic, impassioned roles. As Sister Hilde, she not only tells the different stories in the film, but also tries to fight HIV in Africa.

3 Needles actually starts in South Africa, using it as a framework for the different stories. However, we only hear Sister Hilde’s voice at this time. Like the other stories, this one involves rituals. In this case, the ritual takes tribal boys into manhood, with rites of circumcision. A bloodied knife on the ground provides stark contrast to the splendor that surrounds the young men.

In preparation for the film, Fitzgerald traveled South Africa, trading stories with tribal elders while learning about the lives of South African people and how AIDS has impacted those lives. His obvious concern and admiration comes through on the screen as we follow the young men along their painful journey into manhood.

Though that part of the movie ends quickly, it introduces us to the magnificent work that cinematographer Thomas M. Harting provides throughout the film. Harting, a long-time collaborator with Fitzgerald, received the Atlantic Film Festival’s 2005 Best Cinematography Award for 3 Needles. While this movie might occasionally be hard to follow, and some of its violent scenes hard to watch, Harting makes every frame artistic. Shot in a variety of languages, and sometimes relying on no words at all, this movie puts much of its burden on the imagery; Harting brings that imagery to life.

Gorgeous images among pain also typify the next story, in which a pregnant woman (Lucy Liu) traffics black market blood, ignorantly spreading HIV throughout entire villages in China. With no understanding—not even a word—for the virus, she simply wants to support her family. Liu’s bright red clothes and pretty face epitomize the movie’s contrast of beauty in the midst of ugliness. She still manages to blend into the world of this story.

Shawn Ashmore and Stockard Channing also might surprise some of their fans. Ashmore played Ged in the Earthsea miniseries, Ice Man in the X-Men movies, and Terry Fox in the TV movie Terry. Here he plays a porn star, stealing blood to pass his HIV test, so he can support himself and his parents. He needs a negative test result to keep making more porn films, but he gives HIV to his costars. Ashmore’s good looks and sometimes ambiguous expressions make him convincing as someone who could incite so much trust and get away with anything.

As Olive, the mother of Ashmore’s character, multiple Emmy, SAG, and Tony award nominee Stockard Channing takes even more extreme measures to support her family. While Betty Rizo (Channing’s character in Grease) never was Sandra Dee, even she would blush after seeing what Olive does, and why she does it. Viewers who loved Channing in Grease, Out of Practice, The West Wing, Six Degrees of Separation, or The Matthew Shepard Story might barely recognize her. In 3 Needles, she makes her character look desperate and fatigued, turning an unlikely storyline into a moving tragedy.

The film’s ending story brings us back to South Africa, and provides glimpses of the young men from the first story. It also brings back some of the film’s most breathtaking scenery, contrasted with the film’s most violent and tragic scenes. Fitzgerald had read about South African tribesmen raping young virgin girls, in the folk belief that the virgins could cure AIDS. That atrocity makes its way into the conclusive tale.

The nuns meet resistance from the people they want to help and bureaucracy from all around. The harder they work, the more they suffer. Ultimately, their faith drives them to keep making whatever difference they can.

Overall, Fitzgerald offers a visually and emotionally stunning work. It requires careful attention and demands further thought. Some viewers might dislike its structure or its scope; still, few viewers could leave it without thinking more about how AIDS has changed the world, or what those changes mean for humanity.

Short film collections often deliver a mixed bag of good and forgettable movies, along with a few initially enjoyable shorts that end way too abruptly. However, this collection satisfies throughout. All seven features involve gay men and display a unique sense of humor.

Available Men, directed by David Dean Bottrell (15 minutes). Richard Ruccolo (from the adorable romantic comedy All Over the Guy) is one of four men who pair off in the wrong way. Two of them are gay men looking for their blind date, while Ruccolo is an agent who thinks he’s meeting a screenwriter but instead sits down with one of the gay men. The results are hilarious and would be fun as a one-act play. Jack Plotnick, always great in his roles as witty gay men, gives another funny performance while listening to the screenwriter talk about expectations. This short’s director, David Dean Bottrell, recently appeared in several episodes of Boston Legal as an uptight, murderous peeping tom.

Straight Boys, directed by Dave O’Brien (15 minutes). I love the drama The Conrad Boys; Nick Bartzen, one of that movie’s stars, appears here as a college student with a jealous girlfriend and a doting gay roommate. Despite some mild violence and conflicted emotions, Straight Boys delivers an enjoyable slice of light-hearted comedy.

Hello, Thanks, directed by Andrew Blubaugh (8 minutes). Using classified ads and voiceovers, Blubaugh gives a funny look at gay dating. His character’s struggle to define himself propels the fast-paced humor. It gets a little too fast, though, and most viewers probably won’t be able to read all of the ads without hitting the pause button a few times.

Tumbleweed Town, directed by Samara Halperin (8 minutes). I usually dislike animated films. However, this odd feature from 1999 keeps my interest—except during the slow dance, which seems to last longer than the film’s eight minutes by itself. Halperin animates action figures and other toys, subverting icons of heterosexual masculinity: trucks, truckers, cowboys, country music, etc. Halperin’s hyper-masculine action figures kiss, snuggle, and have sex with each other. It’s so goofy and irreverent that it works.

The Underminer, directed by Todd Downing (6 minutes). In an unusual approach to adaptation, author and performance artist Mike Albo portrays two different lead roles, in a film based on his book of the same title. Albo is loveable in one role, but both hilarious and annoying in the other…that of the title character. The “underminer” throws out back-handed compliments, spiteful judgments, or passive aggressive whining, every time he opens his mouth. The results are hilarious and should lead to a feature-length adaptation of the book.

Irene Williams: Queen Of Lincoln Road, directed by Eric Smith (23 minutes). The only documentary in the collection, this film initially seems misplaced. It focuses on an elderly woman who loves to design her own brightly colored clothes. Eric Smith immediately becomes enamored with her, and follows her around with his camera for ten years. Despite the focus on Irene’s flamboyant personality, Smith always shows her in a positive light, while also giving an unusual look at friendship between a gay man and a heterosexual woman. Not surprisingly, this short received ten film festival awards, as well as the PlanetOut Short Movie Award for Best Documentary.

Sissy Frenchfry, directed by JC Oliva (30 minutes). Also not surprisingly, this scrappy little gem received the Grand Prize Winner of the 2006 PlanetOut Short Movie Awards. The always engaging Leslie Jordan (Sordid Lives, Will & Grace) plays Principal Principle, at a school that also features a stunning drag queen, openly gay football players, plus-sized cheerleaders, and a gay icon named Sissy Frenchfry. Miss Coco Peru (Trick) also makes an appearance. A newcomer introduces homophobia to a gay-friendly school and turns Sissy’s world upside down. But Sissy won’t give up. This campy satire provides an uplifting ending to a collection of funny gay films.

Monday, January 22, 2007

As someone who reads every book the prolific and talented Ronald L. Donaghe writes, I waited quite a long time for this particular novel. The series Common Threads in the Life began with Common Sons, a gay classic that went out of print for a while then eventually came back as a print-on-demand book. And the demand definitely existed!

Donaghe then continued his series with The Salvation Mongers, a searing look at the ex-gay movement. That second book used some of the same settings and characters. The couple from the first novel again took center stage in The Blind Season, which introduced readers to a much larger extended family.

Donaghe kept saying he was writing a book called The Gathering, which would bring together the Common Threads characters. Fortunately, he changed his mind about The Gathering concluding the series. At least one more novel remains. Of course, he writes other series as well, but this review strictly focuses on Common Threads.

Tom and Joel, the two young men who come out and fall in love as the title characters of Common Sons, are now in their fifties. The daughter they fathered during The Blind Season is now a grown, fascinating woman, and the mother of that daughter has also forged her own identity as an independent woman who has overcome a troubled past. In The Salvation Mongers, Kelly works to expose the ex-gay group that had caused suffering in his life. In The Gathering, he falls back into Tom and Joel’s life, along with an old enemy.

I would call The Blind Season the darkest part of the series, and this novel shares some of that book’s gritty tragedy. However, the spotlight soon returns to the relationships of The Gathering’s large—and mostly lovable—cast. The characters spring as naturally from the New Mexico landscape as the agrarian life they enjoy. Instead of catty, stereotypical queens in a New York City coffee shop, Donaghe gives us three-dimensional people that represent the lives of countless gays across countless small towns. He also gives us heterosexual characters who often surprise us in their ability or inability to overcome prejudice.

As other reviewers often note, Donaghe also gives us gay couples who work hard to create lasting relationships—with or without gay role models. Tom and Joel’s hard work on their farm constantly mirrors their hard work at making a better life for themselves and other gays. Donaghe not only imagines that possibility, but presents it in an appealing, memorable novel.